Advances in nuclear fusion technology have the potential to reshape the global energy system. Francesco Sciortino, Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Proxima Fusion, talks about the path from innovation to commercialisation.
Interviewed by Klara Marie Schroeder
Nuclear fusion is a way of generating energy by forcing tiny atoms to join together, the same process that powers the sun. When these atoms fuse, they release enormous amounts of energy without producing carbon emissions or long-lived radioactive waste. Unlike fission power plants, which split heavy atoms apart, fusion fuses light elements and is inherently safer because there is no “chain reaction” – in other words, the reaction stops on its own if conditions aren’t perfect. The excitement around fusion comes from recent breakthroughs showing we are getting closer to controlling this process on Earth, raising hopes for the ultimate source of clean, abundant, and reliable energy for humanity.
Fusion includes very different approaches, and we operate in magnetic confinement fusion, specifically, QI stellarators. What has changed - and why scaling is more feasible today - comes down to three key developments.
First, integrated simulation capability. The complex geometry of stellarators simply cannot be designed without large-scale computational power. Today, supercomputing and integrated design frameworks allow us to simulate all components together from the start, rather than building parts sequentially and discovering incompatibilities later. This is fundamentally a geometry problem, and modern simulation tools - including AI-assisted methods - make a fully integrated design approach possible for the first time.
Second, advances in high-temperature superconductors. These materials enable very powerful magnets that can carry current without energy loss when cooled appropriately. Crucially, these materials are now commercially available, with a global supply chain in place. What has so far been missing is the ability to turn these materials into exceptionally strong magnets for power plants. That’s now changing rapidly. Magnetic field strength is decisive for fusion performance: doubling the field increases fusion power by a factor of sixteen; tripling it increases fusion power by eighty-one times; and so on. In the last few years, we have gained the ability to engineer high-field magnets with unprecedented capabilities.
Third, manufacturing and engineering maturity. With a scientific basis now developed, the remaining challenge is engineering—demonstrating that these powerful magnets can be built, assembled, and operated reliably together with other components. Advances in manufacturing techniques, including additive manufacturing and new forms of material treatments, support this step from design to hardware realization.
Proxima Fusion was founded around these three enablers. Roughly half of the team works on simulation and integrated design, and the other half on magnet R&D. Together, these shifts explain why scaling fusion has become meaningfully more feasible now than in previous decades.
Energy markets would change fundamentally as fossil fuels decline. Today, there is no realistic projection for removing fossil fuels entirely, because we still need reliable baseload power to balance intermittent renewables. Fusion is one of the few scalable solutions for providing that consistent energy. Fission is known to pose challenges due to the complexity of its safety systems, associated costs, long-lived radioactive waste, and social acceptance. Deep geothermal is promising but still lacking a decisive demonstration, and other baseload options like hydro or wave energy are limited in scalability.
If we succeed in building economically viable fusion power plants, they could supply 20–30% of the grid. Our goal is not to replace 100% of the energy supply—localized solutions like rooftop solar and regional wind will remain highly effective where they make sense. Fusion would complement these technologies, particularly in regions where solar or wind are less viable, providing reliable baseload and load-following capacity.
Energy markets are highly political. Energy security and resilience have become especially critical in Europe since the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Fusion could provide a stable energy solution that is independent of geopolitical tensions, but its adoption depends on the cost of power plants. At Proxima, we focus not only on feasibility but also on operations and maintenance, ensuring our plants are commercially viable—not just buildable. We’ve published research demonstrating the integrated concept is feasible at a high level; the next step is turning that into a real commercial product.
When we think about fusion, we should see it as an energy technology in the research and development phase. Proxima is not an energy company today, but transformational technologies - like Nvidia’s GPUs for computing - take time to move from research to industrialization. One should not invest expecting results next year; the process requires patience and a diversified approach to risk. Fusion, if successfully developed, has the potential to impact economies at the GDP level and even influence geopolitics at the global level.
Proxima’s objective is to achieve a net energy gain fusion demonstrator in the early 2030s, followed by a first-of-a-kind fusion power plant by the late 2030s. Beyond that, in the 2040s, the focus will shift to true scaling: producing batches of power plants, optimizing their design and operations, and simultaneously financing the next generation of plants. This phase will require infrastructure and loans in addition to equity, and reaching it as quickly as possible is critical to enabling large-scale impact.
Funding remains one of the greatest risks to accelerating fusion deployment, as access to faster and sufficient capital is essential for the technology to scale and contribute meaningfully to a low-carbon economy.
I think the main issue in Europe is a willingness to make big-ticket investments. In the US, a few investors have made enough in venture capital to be bold, and examples like General Catalyst and Pacific Fusion show how confidence and network can enable significant capital raising. It demonstrates the ability to secure the scale of funding necessary to make fusion pay off at scale.
In fusion, underfunding is a critical risk; it simply does not get you to market. The technology might be excellent, but without sufficient investments, it cannot succeed. In Europe, the key is access to sufficient capital and the careful selection of companies that should be funded in strategic domains where Europe has actual strengths. You can’t simply decide to dominate a sector without having the underlying capabilities in place already. Europe should focus on areas where there is a real opportunity and expertise. In fusion, we happen to have these advantages in stellarator technology.
Right now, private capital markets are clearly skewed toward the United States, while public investment in China is very concentrated and powerful. Europe is at the start of a new phase, and we are beginning to see signs of progress. But we must keep pace, because the world is not waiting.
In fusion, China and the US are racing ahead, but there are still many untapped opportunities—“cannons we haven’t fired.” Europe cannot build a fusion power plant with public funds alone; we need private investors. By combining both public and private investments, and with large corporations working on breakthrough technologies together with scale-ups, Europe can replicate the economic successes seen in the US over the past decades. This continent shines with internationally recognized leadership in magnetic confinement fusion R&D. We believe that Europe has all the ingredients to propel fusion forward, which is why Proxima is based here.
But Europe must recognize that deep tech spin-offs and scale-ups like Proxima Fusion are not “nice to have,” they are necessary to move from science excellence into industrial implementation at a competitive speed. We draw top talent, can iterate quickly, and attract private capital. In the coming months, you can expect announcements that will position Europe solidly in the global fusion race.
Good regulation can be a major advantage for fusion. Unlike fission, fusion does not have a chain reaction - neutrons cannot trigger a runaway process - so there is no risk of an uncontrolled reaction. This intrinsic safety is already recognized in the US, UK, and Japan, and we hope Germany follows soon. Fusion regulation will resemble that of particle or medical accelerators, which are complex and involve high-intensity radiation but can be operated safely with proper training.
Fusion power plants will produce radioactive material, but none of it will be long-lived. This makes the economic case much easier compared to fission, which requires extensive infrastructure and security measures. This combination of safety, simplicity, and manageable radioactive material is what will make fusion economically compelling and what drives our vision.
We strongly believe in cooperation between business and government, which is why events like the Berlin Global Dialogue are so important – and why we are also organising a roundtable at the World Economic Forum this year that connects European industry with scale-ups to propel manufacturing forward.
Fundamentally, we believe in two things. First, we need to embrace European champions. It cannot be Germany, France, or Italy going their own way. Proxima is a European company above all else - we are in Germany because Germany built the key technical advantage with Wendelstein 7-X, the most advanced stellarator in the world. But we also work with national labs across Europe. It is important that people do not just say they want national champions, but rather that they actively embrace that vision.
Second, we need to concentrate capital effectively. To me, that requires believing in teams, not just ideas. Often, the most important skill of an investor isn’t judging technology, but judging the team. When talent coalesces around a strong team, that is a clear sign of a potential runaway process - something you can either catch or lose.
Francesco Sciortino is the CEO and Co-Founder of Proxima Fusion. Francesco has spent nearly a decade working at the cutting edge of fusion, spanning groundbreaking work on tokamaks during his PhD in plasma physics and fusion energy at MIT and later at the Max Planck Institute for Plasma Physics(IPP), where he also acted as one of the European coordinators for tokamak research. It was at IPP that Francesco progressively shifted his focus from tokamaks to stellarators, recognizing breakthroughs in stellarator research in2022 and defining a new path to faster commercialization of fusion energy.
Proxima Fusion is a Munich-based fusion energy company spun out of the Max Planck Institute for Plasma Physics in 2023, focused on commercializing clean, abundant energy using advanced stellarator reactors. Proxima has quickly become one of Europe’s fastest-growing fusion startups, raising substantial funding to advance its “Stellaris” stellarator concept and push toward demonstration devices and eventual grid-ready fusion energy deployment in the 2030s.
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